The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions (ICATU), the Education International (EI), the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the American AFL- CIO and the British TUC conducted a fact-finding mission to Iraq from 16-24 February 2004.
The ICFTU-led delegation met with the Iraqi Federation of Workers’ Trade Unions (IFTU) leadership, individual IFTU union leaders from many different sectors of the Iraqi economy and IFTU workplace committees.
The delegation met with the IFTU Executive committee at its temporary headquarters at the Mechanics Union in Baghdad and with leaders and branch committees of both the Railway and the Oil and Gas Workers' Unions in Baghdad and Basrah.
At all of these meetings the ICFTU were able to put questions to the union leaders and branch committees. They asked particularly about the experience of building unions in post Saddam Iraq; the process for elections of union committees and leaders and the role of women in trade unions and their leadership.
The IFTU executive, union leaders and branch secretaries responded openly and frankly to the ICFTU questions about the challenges facing them, the difficulties that they are encountering under the occupation and their successes.
The delegation also visited the IFTU headquarters, which was raided by US military on 6 December 2003 and which is still closed. The delegation took a numbers of photographs of the building and interviewed the General Secretary of the Transport and Communication Workers Union who was himself arrested and detained overnight by the American military forces.
The delegation then split into two. One part went to Iraqi Kurdistan (Erbil) for meetings with Kurdish Unions. The other went to the South (Basrah and Umm Qasr) where they met with CPA officials, representatives of Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) which has been appointed by USAID to run the port of Umm Qasr and the new Port Authority Director. The delegation called for workers to be able to organize freely and for the immediate repeal of Saddam’s anti-union laws as the basis for workers' legal rights in the new Iraq.
The delegation met the Basrah IFTU executive and the leaders and branch committee officials of ten unions at the main office of the Oil and Gas Workers' Union in Basrah. Unions present at the meeting were the Oil and Gas Workers, the Mechanics, the Railway Workers, Agricultural Workers, the Dockers amongst others.
The ICFTU delegation reported that: "They visited workers in the education, food manufacturing, hotel, petroleum, road transport, port and railway sectors. Everywhere, they found an appetite and a need for trade unionism. Workers are organising unions in workplaces where they were forbidden under Saddam Hussein's laws, and revitalising union structures previously dominated by the Ba'ath party. The mission met with new trade unionists, and trade unionists returned from exile or re-emerging from prison or the underground... The labour laws inherited from the previous regime, which among other things banned trade unionism in the public sector (most of Iraq's economy at the time), present many obstacles for trade unions. The mission stressed the need for the administration to involve workers through their trade unions, in the development of new labour laws."
The ICFTU in a statement issued on 27/2/2004 concluded: “The international trade union movement will continue to work to assist Iraqi workers and their unions at the sectoral, regional and national levels. A strong a vibrant trade union movement will be a key foundation for the development of democracy in the country, and in ensuring social justice and equitable and sustainable economic development.” - ICFTU Press Statement 27/2/2004 http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991218998&Language=EN
The IFTU welcomes the long overdue signs of interest by the international labour movement in Iraqi workers' rights and sees the ICFTU delegation as an important symbol of solidarity.
The IFTU is greatly encouraged by the ICFTU visit and urges all labour movement activists to re-double their demands for international standards, and in particular the core Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) to be applied immediately in Iraq.
The IFTU
Executive Committee
27/2/2004.
posted by Abdullah 9 March 2004 at 22:15 PM
Posted at March 9, 2004 10:14 PM